Commercial websites capture a variety of parameters from a users' computers known as Common Gateway Interface parameters (CGI parameters). The CGI parameters are captured when the website issues a script to the user's computer attempting to logon to the website. The user's computer returns values for the CGI parameters requested. These parameters commonly include non-personal information such as an Internet Protocol (IP) address which is unique to a computer. IP addresses are usually assigned in country-based blocks and can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is connected to the Internet. A browser ID provides the website operator with a wealth of information about the user such as the software being used to browse or surf the Internet. Additionally, the browser ID includes information about the user computer operating system, its current version, its Internet browser and the language. Thus, the browser ID has valuable information for identifying a unique user. The browser ID may also have more detailed information such as the type of content the user can receive; for example, this lets the website operator know if the user can run applications in FLASH-animation, open a PDF-file, or access a Microsoft Excel document.
Commercial websites also transfer cookies to a user's computer during a transaction between them. A cookie refers to a piece of information sent from the web server to the user web browser which is saved on the resident browser software. Cookies might contain specific information such as login or registration information, online “shopping cart” information, user preferences, etc.
The present invention provides a system for obtaining from a user's computer the time zone in which it is located, obtaining a longitude of an ISP server through which the user's computer accesses the Internet, calculating the difference in time zones of the user's computer location and the time zone of the ISP server, and generating a signal reporting the difference in time zones.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the following Figures.